We mark the birth of a new journal, devoted to the study of a neglected era of European history, a brief period, spanning the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, less than a hundred years. Yet, we believe it is right to identify and study so short a time span as a unitary, decidedly European epoch, perhaps with a global dimension. This period embraced three political and social revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic, together with the Napoleonic wars, whose ramifications stretched across the Mediterranean and to the wider world. It witnessed the industrial revolution and the radical transformation of those societies that liberated themselves from the ancien régime. The aspiration to liberty was so powerful in this period that it became the religion of the time and nourished that other ineffable form of liberty that we call equality. It was distinguished by a mysterious driving force that impelled peoples to form themselves into nations, while simultaneously saw the emergence of an intoxicating desire to subjugate other peoples, especially beyond Europe. An extraordinary encounter took place between existential hopes and concrete political conflicts, between new aesthetic forms and artistic expression, between reason and sentiment, all driven by the explosion of Romanticism, ably described by one of the great women writers of the era. Over the period, suffering and pain came to be regarded as a precious means of acquiring knowledge, a process capable of transforming the defeat of today into the certain victory of tomorrow. Although ubiquitously referred to as ‘Restoration’, it was a moment that refused to be restored. Those who sought restoration were forced to admit that, in the end, they had laboured in vain to rebuild ‘edifices that have become worm-eaten by time’, and would live to regret having been born either too soon, or too late. This age, born of revolution, was destined to end with the alluring scent of ‘the springtime of the peoples’ in the air.

This new journal provides a meeting place for scholars from different countries, different specialisms and different generations. We hope to expand our numbers and collaborations considerably through the journal, and cordially invite fellow travellers to join us on this journey and nourish our pages with their knowledge. Directed towards a mainly European readership, the journal will publish its articles in the mother tongue of its authors, at least in the principal European languages: Italian, French, English, Spanish and German. We treasure this objective because we are convinced that scholarly communities are not built by imposing monolingualism on readerships. On the contrary, we cherish a deep respect for difference. The starting point for such understanding is linguistic difference, for we appreciate that different historiographical traditions are conveyed through language, and it is the starting point for new research cultures and the root of rich sensibilities of individual scholars. Precious values that must be fostered through historical research, however global and universal, can only be the fruit of patient labouring in the vineyards of the particular.